To Build Dream upon Illusion: When State is a Shark Drug Dealer

 I came across the word “shabu-shabu” in 1999 when a wealthy college friend introduced the new “toy” to us. As I can remember, shabu-shabu, also called methamphetamine aka crystal meth, was incredibly expensive, and only wealthy students could buy it. Youngblood and adventures are undoubtedly forever friends, let alone adventures that occur inside the phantasy and don’t require our body to move somewhere. The thought is common among drug users. Someone gets in touch with the drugs through their friends, starts with two persons then become three, five, ten, fifty …  A university whereas 90% of its students were drug users, this is no hoax. COVID-19 pandemic has curbed students worldwide ability to hang out with their friends and degraded their academic achievements. However, lockdowns that happened and are still ongoing in the some countries might build a new social interaction behavior for young generations. Hopefully, a behavior that will protect themselves when they are far away from home and meet various kinds of friends who offer new lucrative things to try. But is this all enough?

 

Epidemic within Epidemic

Meanwhile, lockdowns in the United States have been effective since March 2020 and ended not so long ago. Anyway, the traces that lockdowns left behind need more time to vanish entirely. For almost all of us, lockdowns are not only the onset of our economic difficulties and long-term unemployment. Challenging situations in nearly all living sectors due to COVID-19 have triggered the rise of another outbreak, i.e., a mental disorder that is also popular as depression. Like other diseases, weak immunity is becoming a perfect pre-condition for any variants of viruses to reign. Fragile mental health is a fertile zone for depression and self-harming obsession. A report mentioned that substance-related death has increased to 30% year-on-year during 2020 in the US, with more than 93,000 cases. The article also highlighted the stigma addressed to people with mental health as “disabled folks,” which has driven many to avoid professional help and find the cure with painkillers consumption like fentanyl. At the time of the writing, this very substance is booming in Joe Biden’s home.

Some of us started to encounter fentanyl when the drug was linked to the death of pop star legend Prince in 2016. According to a DEA official statement, fentanyl is an analgesic (pain relief) and anesthetic, approximately 100 times more than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. Ironically, fentanyl is also a variant of medication that is legally produced and sold in the US. Efforts to decrease fentanyl use as a prescription medication have begun since 2011, but it has not appeared effective yet. COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an epidemic within the epidemic when the number of fentanyl overdose deaths is growing along with the corona-virus linked deaths. Some have pointed to the partiality of the US government over Big Pharma (pharmaceutical giants which dominate drugs distribution and selling across the US and global) as the main factor of US failure to suppress fentanyl use nowadays. 

Sadly, fentanyl abuse is not the only subject of the US epidemic within an epidemic. Crystal meth is also a gross problem when most US states have legalized marijuana use since some years ago. One of the common triggers is the seamless process of crystal meth production, with a method called “shake-and-bake” using ephedrine or pseudoephedrine as the main ingredient. These two substances are widely used as decongestants inside cold and allergic medication inconvenient and drug stores across the US. Meth addicts use this tactic when law forces successfully raided and exterminated the Central America-based drug supply chain. DEA’s attempt urged US Congress to tighten the circulation of cold medication has been broken down once by Big Pharma, pleading that the public also has the right to buy cold medicines without prescription according to their need. A source mentioned, Big Pharma is the major contributor to the annual budget of the US Food and Drug Administration. The group also deploys an army of lobbyists consist of 1,378 people to spread its influence within Capitol Hill, assuring that the US administration’s policies will not stand their way to make a profit. 

 

Golden Crescent

Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, President Joe Biden has suspended 20 years of US military operation in Afghanistan. The world is divided in two, responding to the controversial decision. As the Taliban army is raging these days, they slaughtered the Afghan government and the state army officials, beheaded Afghan ex-interpreters who used to work for the US military. On the one side, some have accused US-Afghan military operations of interfering with other nations' internal affairs. Regardless of the controversy, there is one unfinished "trivia" matter when they reach the deadline on August 2021. Drugs trafficking.  

UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) reported that Afghanistan had become the number one heroine supplier on earth since 1979, only a while before the beginning of endless war take control.  In 2020, there were around 224,000 hectares of opium poppy in Afghanistan, increasing to 37% or approximately 61,000 hectares compared to 2019. As per a study in 2005, drug retailers have distributed Afghanistan's heroin to some countries, Europe, Southwest Asia, and China. In the meantime, the numbers of Afghan addicts decreased as they turned to crystal meth, soaring each day as life seemed uncertain due to the current domestic situation. Among them, ironically, women who end up as addicts after their husbands pushed them to the dark side. 

Amid their attempt to demolish Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos, Thailand) opium trafficking, China law enforcement has identified another drugs trade hotspot called Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran) ruled over since the 1990s. The Golden Crescent drug makers have penetrated West China via Xinjiang Province, a transit area before the drugs circulated to other parts of China and Asia. The shift in the Golden Crescent production trend opium and heroin to crystal methamphetamine may have been pushed by an increase in the number of users worldwide. Rather than heroin or marijuana, a meth user will feel more confident, fitter during activities, clubbing, and having sex tirelessly. Lately, drug addicts no longer use crystal meth just to run away from the harsh reality and go floating in the clouds. They crave eternal energy since they have to work hard non-stop and raise a lot of money to achieve the ideals of a prosperous life that will elevate their position in society without sacrificing the needs of pleasure. The powerful effect of meth indeed provides a sensation of such energy. Even it's perishable.

The question is, who was on earth initiated the establishment of the Golden Crescent where all the energy of delusion came? Since the 1980s, there were indications that the Afghan mujahideen used opium production and sales to finance arms sales, later diversifying their business into the sale of methamphetamine. The purity of methamphetamine made from fever medicine will certainly be less to that of methamphetamine produced in Afghanistan, as ephedra (a type of plant ephedrine made of) is in abundance growth there. Relying on long experience in the processing and distribution of heroin, the Taliban controls the entire Afghan drug network with an income of about $4.2 million per year. Within a few years, drugs enforcement had caught off the smuggling of Afghan methamphetamine in Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia. However, this was not enough to solve the root of the problem, while the increasingly widespread distribution of methamphetamine went unnoticed due to the tumultuous news of the Delta variant.

I remember a friend’s story whose brother was shot to death during a drug raid operation in a city. My friend had no idea that his brother was involved in an illicit trade network since the deceased did not smoke and was not a drunkard. Then, the brother and his friend, a high-profile bookie, were driving in a car carrying tens of kilograms of methamphetamine. The authorities shot him for trying to escape. My friend also told me that the big dealer had called him on the phone from prison before being sentenced to death in 2011, that he had donated his “hard-earned” money to several Islamic boarding schools in a town. Several years ago, I heard rumors that GAM (Independent Aceh Movement) was selling marijuana to finance their weapons purchases and rebellion. Whether it’s true or not, who knows.

We can conclude from the stories above that the Golden Crescent is not as divine as its name. It is undeniable that the Taliban's aspiration to establish an Islamic State that enforces Islamic Sharia has attracted sympathy from Muslims in various parts of the world, including Indonesia. As a Muslim who has not practiced Islamic Sharia properly, I was somewhat relieved when the Taliban guaranteed that they would treat Afghan women more humanely according to human rights. However, a dream should have thrived the right way. One should not manipulate any religion to justify and legalize immense evil deeds that we did intentionally, no matter the exact purpose of the action. Will the goal of enforcing Islamic Sharia make people condone the Taliban's gunfight upon drug sales?

I am not a perfect and sinless person, but I find it unacceptable knowing anyone undermines religion as an excuse or guise. I believe that is not what religion was created for. Results don't betray the process. A clean process will, of course, result in something positive, not the other way around. The Taliban's big homework as soon as they succeed in taking over the rest of Afghanistan is breaking the circle of drug trafficking that has supported the Afghan people for decades. Because I believe all countries require their citizens to be physically and mentally healthy without drugs so that together they can build a prosperous nation's life. I am grateful that I have found the light at the end of the tunnel of darkness, but drugs and especially meth are still a threat to some extent. A former marijuana dealer who died 15 years ago once said, "drug business will never die as long as the buyers don't die."  (dy)